Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series)

Symbiosis (1988)

Kimberley Farr: Langor

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Quotes 

• [Picard has denied the Ornarans the replacement coils for their ships] 

  Sobi : If you withhold those coils, you'll be disrupting the stability of both our planets.

  Langor : And interfering with a trade agreement that has lasted for generations. What of your Prime Directive?

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : In this situation, the Prime Directive prohibits me from helping you.

  Sobi : That's absurd!

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : You did not think so when it worked in your favor.

• Langor : The Ornarans provide us with the necessities of life, and we provide them with the necessities of living. It is a fair exchange.

• Langor : We have thought about this a great deal.

  Sobi : We both feel deeply about what is happening on Ornara.

  Langor : And although it is going to cause hardship to us, and to our people, we have decided to give the Felicium to them.

  Sobi : They can pay whenever they are able.

  Langor : We don't want to be the ones responsible for their suffering.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [to Beverly]  There goes the other shoe. They know.

  Doctor Beverly Crusher : What do they know?

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : They know the Ornarans no longer have the plague. They know that Felicium is no longer a medicine; so, of course, they are willing to GIVE this shipment, because they don't want to take the chance that the Ornarans will lose their addiction. They don't want to lose their only customers.

  Doctor Beverly Crusher : How would they have known all of that unless the plague had once infected their planet as well?

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : They were infected. They used the Felicium to cure themselves, but somehow they're ancestors realized that it was a narcotic.

  Doctor Beverly Crusher : [getting angry]  They broke the cycle of addiction and never told the Ornarans. They let them continue to believe that without the Felicium they would die.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Oh, I think it's worse then that.

  [to Sobi and Langor] 

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : My guess is that this... "refining process" of which you are so proud...

  Doctor Beverly Crusher : ...is only to increase the potency of the Felicium and tighten your grip.

  Sobi : [realizing the game is up]  What are you going to do?

  Langor : Are you going to tell them?

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : No. I'm bound by the rules of the United Federation of Planets which orders me not to interfere with other worlds, other cultures. If I were to tell them any of this, I'd violate that Prime Directive.

  Sobi : But you are talking to us about it.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : This is information you already know, and so nothing is changed.

  Langor : If you can't interfere, then... you are going to allow the Ornarans to have the Felicium?

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [neutral]  Yes, I am.

  Doctor Beverly Crusher : No! Don't do it! Jean-Luc, this is not a symbiotic relationship! This is exploitation, pure and simple! The Brekkians have caused all of this suffering and hardship only to make their pitiful lives easier! And all of it based on a lie! No! Deny them this shipment! It is the least we can do!

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : From the moment they agreed to give them the Felicium, my hands were tied.

  Langor : [smugly]  You are absolutely right, Captain. It's not your business.